The resolution of LED screens is compared in terms of “pixel pitch”. This is the distance from one LED lamp to the next and generally speaking, the lower the number, the higher (and better) the resolution. There are several methods to measure this distance and the consumer should be award of each to make a fair comparison.
The first method is “physical” and this refers to the distance between one LED lamp and the next one of the identical color IE: red to red, green to green and blue to blue,. In the case of SMD (surface mounted device) LEDs which contain all three colors, they are always measured in terms of the physical distance.
The second pixel pitch method is called virtual and is used for LED screen systems that incorporate pixel sharing technology. Our Barco B-10 9×12 mobile LED screen uses this technology. The virtual distance is usually half of the physical distance so when a screen has a virtual pixel pitch of 10mm (V10) it actually has a physical pitch of 20mm. The virtual LED screens is unique in that it has equally spaced individually colored LEDs and will have twice as many LEDs in one of the colors. The 10mm virtual screen with pixel sharing will usually look sharper than a non-pixel sharing P20mm screen.
The third method is the Line & Column, or L&C. The pixels are arranged in columns and the pixel pitch, say 12mm L&C, is actually closer to 16mm if calculated in physical terms. Our Daktronics PST-12HD Modular LED screen panels use the L&C pixel arrangement.
Make sure you’re comparing apples to apples regarding the pixel pitches of different LED screens and always ask which measurement method is used.
